Refrigerant container for railway cars



Oct. 14, 1947. I v. E. SISSON REFRIGERANT CONTAINER FOR RAILWAY CARS Filed April 2, 1945 l x I l l l l I l I I l l I l I I L z m U .U n rEL nillulllnll .ilxvL 1N VEN TOR.

Patented Oct. 14, l947 'REFRIGERiANT-TIQNTAINER FOR RA'IIJWAY CARS Vinton .EJSisson, Chicago, Ill .,iassignortostandward Railway "Equipment Manufacturing 'Comjpany, Chicago, Ill., a-corporation of Delaware .-A;pplication.April-2, 1945, Serial No. 586,205 "6'Claims. (01:62:17)

.This invention relates .to railway refrigerator .cars known as .topibunker refrigerator cars such as disclosed in the :Bonsall Patent No. 2,136,999 ,ofi-November ,15, .1938, owned .by my tassignee, wherein the coolingimeans,preferably containers for Waterice or eutectic ice, are suspended immediately below theiroof .ofthecar. The -1ading is. supported in spacedrelationito the :door by a foraminous rack. Flues, ,preferably associated with the -side walls-of-the car, communicate between the space about the refrigerant container and a space b'etween thevfioor "ofthe car and a floor rack supported thereon. Thepath of circulation is from" the re'frigerantcompartment downwardly through the aforementioned -flues, through the space ".under athe f'iloor track and upwardly throughand about the lading-in the 1adingcompartment to v.the refrigerant compartment.

"In certain types of lading, such as frozen'foods, and wherein below freezing temperatures must be maintained in the car transporting the same, where water ice is used as the refrigerating medium, approximately thirty pounds of salt is necessary for each one hundred pounds of ice to provide such required temperature. The containers for the ice are usually of the open mesh type and a drip pan is positioned below the containers, which drip pan forms a partition between the refrigerant compartment and the 1ading compartment and conductsthe meltage to the dues. When the salt is added to the ice it quite frequently runs therethrough and through the open meshes of the refrigerant container and on to the drip pan therebelow in such quantities that it seriously retards, if not blocks entirely, the circulation of air to the flues.

The principal object of the invention, therefore, is to provide means to prevent the salt which has been dumped upon the ice through the car hatches from passing through the ice and bottom of the container in an undissolved state and resting upon the drip pan and thereby retarding air circulation, thereby reducing the efiiciency of the refrigerating system.

More specfically the object of the invention is to provide a refrigerant container which retains the advantages of the open mesh type of container, but is provided with an imperforate area located immediately below the hatch so that the salt cannot fall therethrough. In an open mesh type of refrigerant container the circulating air contacts the refrigerant directly, thus providing the most efficient transfer of heat from the air to the refrigerant.

Other objects and advantages will appear in the following description thereof.

Referring now to the accompanying drawing forming .part of this application and wherein like reference charactersindicate like parts:

:F'igure zl-ls a diagrammatic plan view of the type of railway: refrigerator car to which my improved refrigerantcontainer is applicable.

.Figurez is apartial cross section of a railway refrigerator. car showing my improved refrigerant container and associated parts of the car.

.Eigure Bshows my improvedrefrigerantcon- .tainer .in. upside .down position.

. In .the drawings -IT shows a portion of a refrigerator carroo'fhaving a hatch 2 therethrough and i3 is the upperpor'tion of a side wall of the car. 4 indicates a substantially horizontal partition' located below the roof and above the ladin'g compartment 5. The lining 6, spacedfrom the side wall'3,"provides a flue 'l'th'e'rebetwe'en which communicates with the duct 8 below the refrigerant container 9 located under the hatch 2 through which said container may be serviced. The air warmed by the lading rises and passes through duct 8 and being cooled by the refrigerant in the container descends through the flue 1 to underneath the foraminous floor rack, not shown, and rises through the lading and repeats the cycle, all as shown in Bonsall Patent No. 2,136,999, supra.

Figure 1 shows a typical arrangement diagrammatically in plan view of the relation between the containers and the car proper.

In the servicing of this type of car it is the practice to dump about fifteen hundred pounds of crushed ice in each container and when lower than freezing temperatures are required to be maintained in the lading compartment, about thirty pounds of salt are added for each one hundred pounds of ice. This salt is ordinarily just dumped in on top of the ice and in practice quite frequently a considerable portion of the salt passes through the ice only partially dissolved and through the open meshes of the container bottom and rests upon the partition 4, thereby clarity. Obviously the imperforate plate I may be an integral part of the container with the meshing extending from the edges l2 thereof to the ends l3 of the container. Furthermore, the imperforate area of the bottom of the container may be varied according to the dimensions of the hatch and the container and the quantity of salt necessary to maintain the temperature required in the lading compartment. 7

The accompanying drawings illustrate the preferred form of the invention, though it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the exact details of construction shown and described, as it is obvious that various modifications thereof, within the scope of the claims, will occur to persons skilled in the art.

I claim:

1. In a railway refrigerator car having a roof provided with a hatch, a wall, a substantially horizontal partition forming with said roof and wall a refrigerating chamber below the hatch and above the lading compartment of the car; a refrigerant container positioned within said chamber below said hatch and spaced above said partition, a flue for conducting air cooled by refrigerant in said container downwardly to the lower part of said lading compartment, the portion of the bottom of the container below said hatch .being imperforate and the parts of said bottom adjacent said imperforate portion being foraminous.

2. For use in a refrigerator car having a roof provided with a hatch; a refrigerator container adapted to be positioned below said hatch, the portion of the bottom of the container below said hatch being'imperiorate and the parts of said bottom adjacent said imperforate portion being foraminous.

3. A refrigerant container for a railway refrigerator car having a roof provided with a hatch, said container being of larger dimension than said hatch and adapted to be positioned adjacent the roof and below the hatch and having a bottom and sides and end portions extending upwardly therefrom, the portion of the bottom of said container occurring normally under the hatch being imperforate and the remainder of said bottom being foraminous.

4. A refrigerant container as defined in claim 3 wherein the portions of the sides of the container extending upwardly from the imperforate portion of the bottom are also imperforate.

5. In a refrigerator car having a roof provided with a hatch; a refrigerant container of larger dimension than said hatch positioned below said hatch, the portion of the bottom of the container below the hatch opening being imperforate and the parts of said bottom adjacent said imperforate portion being foraminous.

6. For use in a refrigerator car having a roof provided with a hatch; a refrigerant container adapted to be positioned below said hatch, the portion of the bottom of the container below the hatch being imperforate and the parts of said bottom adjacent said imperforate portion being foraminous, the portions of the sides of the container adjacent the imperforate bottom portion also being imperforate.

VINTON E. SISSON.

REFERENCES CITED The following references are of record in the file of this patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name v Date 417,801 Zimmerman Dec. 24, 1889 

